“Hey,” she whispered.  She suddenly felt self-conscious, like she shouldn’t have shown up.

“What are you doing here?  It’s four in the morning.”

“Can I come in?” she asked, surprised by the time.

“It’s late, and I was sleeping.  It’s been a long night.  I really don’t have time to deal…”  He trailed off when he finally looked at her.

“Please?”  She tried to hold the tears in, but she didn’t succeed.

“Devon, can’t this wait until the morning?” he asked, doing a poor job of hiding his sympathies.

“It is the morning,” she muttered.

“A normal hour then?” he persisted.

Devon dropped her head and then looked up into his big eyes.  They weren’t rimmed with red like they had been this afternoon.  They weren’t dazed like they frequently were when he came into work high.  They were just normal Brennan eyes, and she liked them the best.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said, feeling defeated.

Brennan sighed.  He tipped his head side to side as if debating, and then he closed the door, pulled back the chain, and opened it for her.  “Come on in,” he said.  “I’ll make up the couch again.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, relieved.

Devon took a seat on the couch and remembered the last time she had been here.  Her head pounded, and she tried not to think about it.  This was Brennan.  She could figure things out.

He returned with a pile of pillows and blankets, just like last time.  But this time, she could tell that he was still pretty upset.  She wasn’t sure if it was from earlier or what, but his body was rigid.

“Well, good night.”  He turned and walked toward the bedroom.

At least, he wasn’t one to pry.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.  Unlike him, she was one to pry.

Brennan stopped walking and sighed.  He turned around to face her.  “How much have you had to drink?”

“Too much,” she offered easily.

“That’s what I thought.  Why don’t you just…sleep it off?” he said softly.

“Brennan,” she said when he turned away from her again, “can’t you just talk to me?”

She watched him clench and unclench his fists at his side.  He turned back around and shook his head.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Can you sit down?” Devon asked, pulling her feet up on the couch.

“No,” he said stiffly.

“God, Brennan, what’s wrong?” she asked, the alcohol making her bolder than she would have normally been.

“You want to know what’s wrong?” he asked, crossing the room.  He took a moment to try to compose himself, but he failed.  “You’re what’s wrong.  Everything about you!”

Devon swallowed, looking up at him in shock.  Where was this coming from?  “What?  Me?” she croaked.

His hands shook.  “You walk into my life when I won’t let anyone in.  You walk right in without asking, without giving me an option.  Then, you slam that door shut so hard, it could crack the windowpanes.  Just when I think you’re gone and I can close up again,” he nearly shouted at her, “you crash back in all over again.  And it’s worse now because I’m around you all the time.

“You have this barrier up, and I have no clue how to get through it.  And it’s obvious that you don’t want to let it down, but I can’t help but try.  When I think there’s no chance, none at all, after you leave my gig…when I wrote that song for you…”  He trailed off, looking at her fiercely.  “Then, you show up here, saying you have nowhere else to go…when the door is always wide open.”

Devon’s heart was beating so hard in her chest that she thought she might explode.  This was what he had been carrying around all this time?  She had suspected that he still liked her, but this…how could she even respond?

“I think I broke up with my boyfriend,” she said softly.

It wasn’t a lie, not exactly.  She had left Reid.  It was over in her heart.

“What?” Brennan asked, coming up short.

He hadn’t been expecting that.

“We’re over.”

Brennan sat down then.  “I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t believe him, and it made her smile.  “It’s, uh…for the better.”

“God, I’m a dick,” he said, his hand brushing through his hair.

Devon laughed.  “Far from it.”

“Is that why you came by?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Sort of.”  Devon scrunched up her nose.  “Hadley and Garrett got into a fight, and I didn’t want to be around that.”  Also not a lie.

“Everything is falling apart,” he said softly.

Devon shrugged.  “I don’t know about everything.”

She patted the seat next to her on the couch, and he moved over to sit by her.

“How are you feeling, you know…about your boyfriend?” he asked with a sigh.

She couldn’t tell if it was a sigh of relief or not.

“I’m not sure if it has all sunk in yet,” she admitted, wrapping her arms around her knees.  “We dated for almost three years.”

“That’s a long time.”

“Yeah,” she said, “it is.”

Brennan sighed again.  “It’ll get easier with time.”

Devon nodded.  “I think so.  Plus, time is all I have now, right?”  Was she trying to convince herself or him?

“Sorry about yelling at you,” he said sheepishly.

“It’s alright.  I probably deserved it,” she whispered.

“You didn’t,” he said.  “I was…projecting.”

“That’s one word for it,” she said with a laugh.

He stared down at the floor for a few minutes.  He really was beautiful.  He was even beautiful when he had yelled at her.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said finally.  “That when you didn’t have anywhere else to go, you came and found me, so I can be there for you.”

He lifted his eyes to hers, and she felt his words hit her.

“I want to be that for you, Devon.”

THE SMELL OF bacon filled the apartment, and Devon awoke with a smile.  No nightmares.  She hadn’t had a single one all night.  It was the first time in weeks.  She had slept soundly, not even waking up when Brennan got up to cook.  She checked her watch and realized it was already noon.  She couldn’t believe it!  She had slept for almost eight hours.  She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Brennan called from the kitchen door.

She yawned and stretched her arms over her head.  She was clad in one of his T-shirts.  It was way too big, but it smelled so good and clean and so much like Brennan that she wanted to wear it all the time.  Her eyes traveled over his body, and she tried to keep the appreciation off her face.  But it was too early, and it must have showed because he smirked at her.  What did he expect her to do when he walked around the apartment shirtless?

Devon pointed out her feet until they touched the other end of the couch.  It felt so good to just…be for once.  She couldn’t believe how well she had slept after last night.  But she was thinking that discussing what had happened to her, even if everything had gone awry, had helped her…or maybe it was Brennan.  She couldn’t choose.

“Good morning,” she said through another yawn.

“How do you sleep so much?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“I haven’t slept this much in months.  I feel like a new person.”

Brennan laughed, and Devon sighed back into the couch at the sound.  She wasn’t sure she had ever seen him laugh like that—loose, happy, and free.

“Well, I hope this new person likes bacon.”

“She does,” Devon said, nodding.  She flipped the covers off her body.  When she stood, the shirt fell nearly to her knees, and she blushed, remembering that she had taken off her jeans before she fell asleep.  She snatched them off the ground and darted into the bathroom.  After tugging the jeans back on to cover her exposed legs, she quickly tied her hair in a knot and then splashed cold water on her face.  She needed to wake up and not blush so much.